Republican U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will face off Tuesday night for a vice presidential debate, the final scheduled in-person exchange between the campaigns as polls continue to show a tight race just over five weeks out from November’s election.
The debate, hosted by CBS News, is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern and last for 90 minutes. The event will air live on local CBS affiliate stations and stream on the CBS News app, CBSNews.com, YouTube and Paramount+.
The matchup between the running mates of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris brings together two men who both claim congressional records and previous service in the U.S. armed forces.
The debate also comes as the southeastern U.S. reels from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which barreled inland as a tropical storm that brought record-breaking flooding and claimed more than 100 lives — a third of them in North Carolina, a swing state in the 2024 presidential election.
Republican National Committee and Trump campaign officials said Monday that Vance, Ohio’s junior senator, plans to attack Walz during the debate on several fronts, including tying Walz to the Biden administration.
“No amount of Minnesota nice is going to make up for the fact that Walz embodies the same disastrous economic, open-border and soft-on-crime (record) Harris has inflicted on our country over the last four years,” said Minnesota GOP Congressman Tom Emmer, who has been standing in as Walz during Vance’s debate prep.
“J.D. Vance is prepared to wipe the floor with Tim Walz and expose him for the radical liberal he is,” Emmer told reporters on a Monday morning call.
But Jason Miller, senior adviser for the Trump campaign, warned “Walz is very good at debates. I want to repeat that Tim Walz is very good in debates, really good. He’s been a politician for nearly 20 years.”
Trump posted Monday on his Truth Social platform that he will be doing a “personal play by play” of the debate.
The Harris campaign has not revealed details about Walz’s debate preparation. CNN reported that Walz is nervous and has been practicing with Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as a stand-in for Vance.
Walz spent Saturday in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan Wolverines vs. University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football game, where he was greeted by local elected officials and rallied students about the importance of the youth vote, according to the campaign.
Military service, China
Trump campaign surrogates said debate watchers are guaranteed to see Vance attack Walz on his military service.
Vance touts his own four years in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2003 to 2007, during which he was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a military journalist.
The Trump campaign maintains Walz retired to avoid being deployed to Iraq. Trump campaign officials featured two veterans on Monday’s call who slammed Walz for being a “turncoat.”
“He deserted his post and his unit after 24 years of military service,” said Tom Behrends, a retired Command Sergeant Major for the Minnesota National Guard.
Walz, a former six-term congressman who represented the state’s 1st Congressional District, served in the Army National Guard for 24 years prior to running for office. He deployed to Italy between 2003 and 2004 to support Operation Enduring Freedom, a non-combat post.
A fact check by PolitiFact found he filed his candidacy paperwork in February 2005, a month before the Walz battalion was notified of possible deployment within two years. Walz filed retirement paperwork five to seven months before the deployment notification, according to the fact check.
Walz led a U.S. House resolution in 2007 to honor the Minnesota service members for their deployment to Iraq, according to the National Guard.
Walz carries the distinction of being the highest-ranking enlisted soldier to ever serve in Congress, according to his congressional biography published in 2017.
Walz suffered hearing loss and tinnitus after specializing in heavy artillery for two decades, according to Department of Veterans Affairs records he shared with journalists when running for governor in 2018.
He wrote in a 2013 benefits application that blasts “would knock us down and after firing I had ringing in my ears,” according to the records reviewed by Minnesota Public Radio. Eventually Walz underwent surgery to improve his hearing loss.
Retired Sgt. 1st Class Tom Schilling, who joined the RNC call Monday, also attacked Walz’s trips to China and how the governor handled “the George Floyd thing,” referring to protests that rocked Minneapolis following the murder of Floyd, a Black man, by police.
“He had 30 trips to China that really haven’t been answered. As a governor, he let Minneapolis burn,” said Schilling, who served in the Minnesota National Guard.
Walz has said he’s proud of the way local, state and federal officials handled the protests in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Walz ordered full National Guard mobilization roughly three days into the protests. However, Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and state Republican officials both criticized parts of the response by Walz, according to a review by The Associated Press.
Walz taught for a year in the southern China city of Foshan. As a public school teacher in Minnesota he then took students on annual trips to China. In the past he said he visited China 30 times. When pressed for documentation of the trips by APM Reports, the Harris campaign said his visits totaled “closer to 15.”
Trump visits Helene’s destruction in Georgia
Trump delivered remarks Monday in front of a damaged furniture store in Valdosta, Georgia, wearing his signature red “Make America Great Again” hat.
“We’re here today to stand in complete solidarity with the people of Georgia, with all of those suffering in the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Helene,” Trump said, standing alongside American evangelist Franklin Graham, who was coordinating the delivery of supplies.
Trump also said the presidential campaigns should take a backseat to the storm response. “We’re not talking about politics now, we have to all get together and get this solved.”
Moments later he stated falsely that Biden had not taken calls from Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Biden had spoken with Kemp by phone Sunday.
Journalists traveling with Harris in Las Vegas, Nevada, reported in the wee hours of Monday that the vice president was canceling her campaign events to return to Washington. D.C., to be briefed on the response to Helene.
Harris issued a statement Saturday saying that her “heart goes out to everyone impacted by the devastation unleashed by Hurricane Helene.
“Doug and I are thinking of those who tragically lost their lives and we are keeping all those who loved them in our prayers during the difficult days ahead. President Biden and I remain committed to ensuring that no community or state has to respond to this disaster alone,” she continued.
At his campaign rally Sunday in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump criticized Harris for being in San Francisco “at fundraising events with her Radical Left lunatic donors, when big parts of our country have been devastated by that massive hurricane and are underwater, with many, many people dead.”
President Joe Biden delivered remarks from the White House early Monday and pledged federal support to the affected areas. Biden has already issued emergency declarations for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. He also said he would visit the storm-ravaged areas as soon as his motorcade would not get in the way of response efforts.
Republicans for Harris
The Harris campaign continues to tout its growing endorsements from Republicans.
Former conservative Sen. Jeff Flake, of Arizona, announced his endorsement of Harris over the weekend.
“I’ve served with Kamala in the U.S. Senate. I’ve also served with Tim in the House of Representatives. I know them. I know first hand of their fine character and love of country,” Flake wrote on X Sunday.
Republican Voters Against Trump also announced on Sunday a new multi-million-dollar ad blitz in swing states.
The group launched a $5.8 million ad campaign in Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh media markets. The ad launch is part of a $15 million campaign that will also reach Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to a press release.
“Many swing voters are going to be making up their minds in the coming weeks, and it’s critical that we let them know what’s at stake,” Sarah Longwell, the political action committee’s executive director, said in a statement.
“You can repudiate him without renouncing your deeply held conservative values. We’re here to help establish a permission structure for right-leaning swing voters to do the right thing and vote their conscience,” the statement continued.
Ahead on the campaign trail
Trump is scheduled Saturday to return to Butler, Pennsylvania — the location of the first attempt on his life, during which he suffered a non-life-threatening ear injury and one spectator was killed by gunfire while two others were severely injured.
Trump also plans to hold a town hall Thursday in Fayetteville, North Carolina, well east of the devastation caused by Helene.
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